The north road didn't really look all that much different than the last time the slightly less ragged little band had traversed it. The refugees out of the southwest of the nation had either been absorbed into the coastal villages or moved on to greener pastures, so it at least seemed a little bit less grim, though Ten wondered how many of them had simply frozen to death over the winter. She found it a little bit pleasant, in fact, being somewhere with a lot of trees, seeing the leaf buds, red and gray and various shades of green on the ends of their branches. Almost enough to ignore every time the mud squelched right over the top of her boots. Still, the atmosphere among her companions felt dour. Morrigan, in a bid to avoid conversation at all cost, simply turned into a bear and made no noise except the occasional grunt. It was as though everyone else realized just how much closer they were to the hour of reckoning, and moved accordingly. At the end of the day, Ten wasn't sure if the ashen silence was better or worse than the constant bickering. At least when they were arguing she knew they were there. Instead, it was as though he were completely alone, the only clue there were others with her the foot, hoof, and pawsteps behind her. Then again, she was as lost in her own thoughts as any, checking every road sign to tell her if they were nearing the village of Lowstrand.

"I thought we were headed for Orzammar," Lelianna commented, the fourth time on the third day that Ten had stopped and stood on her tiptoes to read a weathered wooden sign, "It's fairly clear where that is. Keep going until the path gets vertical."

"I have business in a town on the way," she said, "Short business. Shouldn't take us too far out of the way."

"Business, or….business?" Lelianna asked, raising her eyebrows.

"It's all the same to me, you know that," Ten said.

"So who are you going to kill?"

"Maybe nobody. I haven't decided yet."

She didn't find it until several days later when they had passed Highever and onto the part of the road that felt like it was in the perpetual shadow of the forbidding peaks looming on the western horizon. It actually wasn't very far from Highever either, directly on the western side of the ridge that made up the cliffs that formed the limits of the city. The sun was mostly down when she saw it, and so she called for them to make camp there. She explained quickly that she had some business to attend to at a town at the end of the road they had just come across. Gauging from the fact that the sea was barely visible on the horizon, that from the town's name she could safely assume it was a coastal village, she imagined it would be the work of one morning to get in and out. Depending on what I want to do there, I suppose.

She had been ruminating on it nearly every night on the road, falling asleep in her tent, sandwiched between Pigeon on one side and Alistair on the other - the two of them had apparently formed an alliance in furtherance of subjugating the natives and splitting the conquered territory - to thoughts of all the ways she could end Edric Parret. He, a stranger whose name she did not know until a week and a half before and whose face she had never seen beyond whatever echo of it lay in her cousin's, had truly shaped her life more than any other man, including her own father. And after all of that, he didn't even know who she was. She wondered how many parents she'd killed in the heat of the fight without a second thought, how many children in how many villages stayed up late wondering who had delivered the blow that meant Dad wasn't coming home from the war.

She also thought quite a bit about her aunt, whom she had leaned on as the closest thing to a mother she had for most of her life. Pali, darkhaired and deft of hand, had seemed wise and all-knowing to little Ten. She had been aware on a rational level Pali had been much younger than Adaia. But now she knew exactly how young. It meant that when she needed to be coached through all the complications of that strange phase where one was a girl in some situations and a woman in others, Pali had been younger than she was now. Ten had taken her aunt's advice as gospel at the time, but now wondered how much she had been making up as she went along. Then again, she'd been barely seventeen when she'd had to fill the same role for Shianni. And a grand mess I made of that. Though, she had to admit, she felt a little bit proud that her highest, most sacrosanct rule, 'don't leave the Alienage,' had saved Shianni from the worst the world had to offer until she was much older than Ten had been. Does that make it better or worse? Would we have been better off if she'd been earning a wage and subjecting herself to men like that? Would it have been worth being that much less hungry? Was that even my call to make?

She arose just as the sun was peeking over the forests to the east, her belly squirming with anticipation. She rose, and strapped on her armor, then a loose frock on top of that, the fact that she was armed to the teeth disguised. Pigeon, who knew her mistress better than she knew herself, arose with her, following her out to the dying fire, and then down the narrow road towards Lowstrand. The road fell off about a quarter mile north of the main road and became a glorified bridle path. This then narrowed again into a dirt track that one horse at a time might make it down if they were particularly thin and surefooted. This didn't pose so much of a problem for a woman and a dog, but she wondered how anything got in or out of the place. The path grew steep and bony the closer they got to the sea, all rocks and roots, the flesh of the earth worn away with wind and water, year by year. Within the hour she had reached the outskirts of a village, sprawled below her on a low cliff overhanging a pebbly beach. It was not much of a village, about twenty stone huts with turf roofs, then another dozen further down towards the shore that were very clearly fashioned from overturned fishing boats. Not sure of what to do, she sat herself on a rock on the slope and watched the sun's rays crept slowly westward and the village began to awaken. She lit her pipe and pulled her cloak about her, for she still sat in the shadow of spruce and mountain ash, where the chill of winter yet remained.

She watched, taking a healthy pull every so often, as fishermen and women left their houses, kissed spouses and children farewell for the day, and walked down a narrow path cut into the cliff that led to the beach. Further off, she saw them, in teams of two to four, shove dories and coracles into the surf, shrill whoops that carried all the way up the hill to her ears as their feet made contact with the cold water. Then the rest of the village came slowly to life, fires being lit in smoking sheds and under cauldrons of brine. A group of women sat in a circle, singing a song with a lot of nonsense words and repetition that drifted up to her on the stiff salt breeze while they mended nets outside one of the larger houses.

"What do you think, Pigeon?" she asked out loud.

Pigeon grunted and lay down, her massive head between her paws, watching the activity below them as well.

"Well that wasn't helpful."

The dog looked up at her and Ten could have sworn she rolled her eyes. I have no idea what you expect from me, woman. I am a dog. I do dog things. I make eye contact with you while taking a shit and roll around in puddles of vomit. I have nothing to contribute on matters of philosophy.

Ten sighed, and started following a particular villager, looking to be a middle aged woman with her hair up under a green bonnet, walk back and forth between shore and smoking shed with baskets. I remember when I did the same thing every day. Well, most days.

"What kind of dog is that?"

Both Ten and Pigeon all but jumped out of their respective skins. The voice belonged to a child, or a very young woman, who had evidently managed to sneak up on the both of them. Ten turned slowly to see who had asked the question, and her heart gave an involuntary leap against her ribcage, then splashed down into her stomach. At first glance, she could have sworn the girl standing behind her was a ghost from her own past. The hair, which fell shaggily to the girl's shoulders where it had been cut off, probably with a knife, was sandy brown, not red and the ears were rounded at the tips. The face, though, the face that peered out at Ten from under the narrow brim of a flat cap belonged to a twelve-year-old girl Ten had not seen in years.

"She's a Mabari hound," Ten said hesitantly.

"She's huge," the girl said, "How do you control her? She must weigh way more than you." She gazed in fascination at the hound, not noticing Ten looking her over, taking in the scrawny neck, the patched trousers, the sack over her back, probably in the process of being filled up with whatever mushrooms or fiddleheads one could forage from the woods at this time of year.

"She listens to me," Ten said, "Pigeon, sit up."

The hound did so with a grunt.

"Turn in a circle."

Pigeon obliged.

"Good girl. Now do a wolf."

Pigeon howled. Down the shore, Ten saw some of the villagers look up in alarm, wondering what on earth could have brought a timber wolf so close to the village. To her credit, the girl found this uproariously funny, holding her sides and screaming with high-pitched, almost manic laughter. Ten couldn't help but see just how large the shirt was on her, and just how thin she was under it.

"Scared the shit out of half the village!" she exclaimed.

"She's good at that."

"You're not from here," the girl observed.

"No," said Ten.

"Well I knew that. No elves in this town, after all. But you're not from Highever either. You're from Denerim aren't you."

The girl's accent was somewhat akin to the lilt of a Highever native, but somehow rougher around the edges, but the voice really was very similar to Shianni's.

"Sure," said Ten, "Who are you anyway, strange child who came out of the wood?"

"Sybil Cawdrey," the girl said, sticking out her right hand in a gesture Ten had mostly seen from working class men trying to make a good impression.

"Teneira Tabris," Ten said, shaking the girl's hand, but in doing so finding her own crushed in a death grip she could not believe such a little lass could accomplish.

"Well met," Sybil declared, "Not to be impolite, but not many strangers come through here. So it begs the question… the fuck are you doing here?"

"I thought I had some business in town," Ten said after a moment, "But I'm not sure I'm in the right place."

"Business? In Lowstrand?" Sybil said, "What business could someone from the capital have here?"

"I was looking for a friend of my mother's," Ten said.

"Who's your mum?"

"Adaia Alurani," said Ten, "Not that that would mean anything to you."

"Can't say that it does. You know her friend's name?"

"Edric Parret."

Sybil gave a short bark of a laugh far too cynical for a girl of her years, "Well you're a few months too late for that."

"And how's that?"

"He ain't here," she said.

"Really. Any idea where he went?"

Sybil laughed again, "To the darkest part of the Fade as far as I'm concerned."

"So you know him." Of course you do.

"Of course I do. He's my dad, the rancid old shite."

"Go ahead, tell a total stranger how you really feel, why don't you."

"Never been one for social graces," Sybil chuckled, "What with my mother being simple and my dad being a fiend in human skin."

"How old are you anyway?"

"Old enough."

"To forage on your own?"

"To chase the no good son of a bitch out of the house with a gaff hook."

Ten paused, looked at the girl suspiciously. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Go ahead, report me to the constable. He won't believe an elf. Probably would arrest you for the crime and you just arrived months after the fact."

"Fair enough," Ten observed. She moved over on the rock, let the kid sit next to her. She offered her her pipe. Old enough to credibly threaten a grown man with a deadly weapon, old enough to smoke.

"Much obliged, Missus," Sybil said, accepting the seat, and the smoke, which she took without coughing.

"So why'd you do that? The bit with the gaff hook?"

"Been planning it for years. I told him too. I said 'Dad, one day I'm going to kill you and you're not going to see it coming unless I want you to.' He just laughed at me. Thought I was an imbecile like Mum."

"Lovely thing to say about your ma…"

"Nah, didn't mean it like that. More like the way physicians say it. All… what's the word… clinical. My aunty said she nearly drowned when she was a kid. They pulled her out but she was never quite right after it. Can barely write her own name. And Dad would come by, once every few months, and here I am. So last time he showed up…" Sybil made a hook with one finger and drew it across her throat.

Of all the fucked up… "Miss Cawdrey, this is incredibly personal and I do not know you."

"It is, but I'm guessing if your mum was friends with Ned Parret and you're here looking for him, you're probably my long lost half sister. I hope you don't think he's going to be a good dad or anything, he's not. And being as we're family and all that, you get to hear all the nasty bits."

I see.

Sybil, completely undeterred by Ten's silence, continued, "See, my dad doesn't have friends. He has girls. He comes round, stays a few months, eats our food, sleeps in Mum's bed… then off again for a year or more. Last time I followed him, I found him doing the same thing with some girl in Crestwood. Real young, too. With a year-old kid."

"Well first of all, I'm not your sister," Ten said, heading that one off at the pass, "And he wasn't my mother's friend. That was a lie."

"Oh, so did he knock you up? Does that make you my aunty?"

"No, and… no that's not how that works. At least I don't think so. Never thought about it. Where's your dad from anyway?"

"Denerim. Talks like you, just… posher somehow."

"Thanks, I guess? What's your deal anyway? You look like you're nine but you talk like you're thirty-five years old and have been working in the mines for twenty-eight of them."

"I'm fourteen, thank you very much, and I've been around the block. That's what the city folk say, yeah?"

"Sure. I suppose you don't have blocks here, do you."

"Nope. Say, you got any gin on you, Missus?"

Ten thought about saying no, it was barely seven in the morning, but frankly she was a bit fascinated with this strange small human that looked so much like her cousin. "Would whiskey do?"

"In a pinch."

Ten fished in her pack, found a flask. She gave it a sniff before handing it over, but did so. The urchin took a swig, grimacing a bit.

"Now that takes the edge off," Sybil said, "So you ain't my long lost half sister, and you lied about my dad knowing your mum. Why are you looking for him?" She went to put it in her sack, but Ten shook her head, and she handed it back.

"Oh he knew her all right," Ten said, inspired by the kid's openness, "They just weren't friends. He killed her, you see."

Finally, something had fazed the child. She blinked at Ten with her large blue eyes, "Really…"

"Well that's what I was told. I guess I thought I'd have a word with him myself, see what truth there was to it. But he's apparently not here, hasn't been here for months. So I suppose there's no reason for me to be here either." Ten slapped her knees with both hands and rose, whistling through her teeth for the dog to follow her.

"Wait. Why'd he kill your mum?"

"I'm not your long lost half sister. But I'm pretty sure my little cousin is. And, well, my mother took issue with that. Treated my aunty the same way he treats your ma, I guess."

"So your mum fought him."

"Yes."

"And he killed her."

"He did."

"So are you tracking him down to kill him back?"

"Like I said, I just wanted to talk to him."

"Are you sure he's your cousin's dad?"

"You look a lot like her," Ten said, gesturing at the girl's face.

"Really. But she's an elf, right?"

"More or less."

"And I look like her?"

"Everything but the ears."

"And she lives in Denerim?"

"She does."

"How old is she?"

"Twenty-one."

"So she's grown."

"More or less."

"Think she'd like me?"

"I genuinely have no idea."

"Do you like me?"

"Well I don't know you do I."

"But you gave me a nip of whiskey and let me smoke and didn't sic the dog on me, so you definitely don't hate me."

"I'm not in the business of hating strange children that materialize out of the forest, I'm pretty sure that's how a girl winds up cursed by whatever spirits haunt this land."

"Sensible. Good thing not to mess with the fairies," Sybil said.

"What's in the sack?"

"Mushrooms. My uncle won't let me out on his boat with him until I'm sixteen and it's too cold to dive for oysters yet so we get what we get," Sybil said. She opened the sack and let Ten look. Ten reached in, grabbed a handful of spongy caps, then immediately dropped them back in.

"You're not going to eat those, are you?" Ten said, concerned.

"Of course not, I'm not stupid. I'll dry them then sell them in Highever," Sybil said, cracking a chip-toothed grin, "Keeps us in firewood and smoked fish until it's oyster time."

"I'll save you a trip. How much do they pay you in Highever?"

"And what'll you use them for?"

"Same thing whoever your local buyer is, I imagine. They're not good for much except a fairly heinous death," Ten said.

Sybil tilted her head back so she could get a better look at Ten from under the brim of her cap, "So what, you deal in poisons?"

"When it suits me," Ten said.

"All yours for twenty silver."

"Here's a sovereign. Careful with these things, pretty easy to swallow an amount to have a kid your size shitting herself to death," Ten said.

"I don't have change."

"I don't need change. Tell me what your dad looks like."

"Five nine. Red hair, but it's going gray at the sideburns now. Broad shoulders. He's got a scar across his left cheek, about here." The girl drew one finger about three inches across her cheekbone. "He tried growing a beard to cover it up but the whiskers don't reach that high."

Ten sat up straight, Avrenis Lin's voice in the back of her head. It took your ma about five seconds to slice him across the cheek.

"Think he'll be back here?"

"Doubt it. I told him if he showed his face in town again I'd put the hook right in his nethers so he can't sire any more sorry little shites like me," Sybil said, "Sorry you came all this way, must be a long road from Denerim."

"I have other business in the area," Ten said, "Thanks for the mushrooms."

"Thanks for the business. Say, if I was going to go to Denerim, and find your cousin, you think she'd be glad to see me?"

"I don't know," said Ten, truthfully.

"What's her name?"

"Shianni. But I wouldn't go to Denerim. Not anytime soon. Kids like you alone on the roads are easy pickings and there's a whole lot of danger out there that a gaff hook isn't going to get you out of."

"There's danger everywhere," Sybil said.

"Suit yourself," Ten said. She rose from the rock. Turned her back on the village. Pigeon sprang up and followed.

"Wait. Miss Tabris," Sybil said.

"What is it?"

"Can you have the dog do a wolf again?"

"Sure," said Ten, and gave the appropriate command. She didn't wait this time, just walked back up the stony path while the kid's laughter echoed behind her. It was still long before noon. Given how long she had heard voices around the campfire the night before, probably not everyone would be up yet. She put thoughts of Edric Parret behind her, for now. He might turn up. He might not. But one thing had been confirmed, which brought her peace. Even if she did not manage to get to him before the Deep Roads took her, someone else certainly would.